1git-tag(1) 2========== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git-tag' [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] <name> [<head>] 13'git-tag' -d <name>... 14'git-tag' [-n [<num>]] -l [<pattern>] 15'git-tag' -v <name>... 16 17DESCRIPTION 18----------- 19Adds a 'tag' reference in `.git/refs/tags/` 20 21Unless `-f` is given, the tag must not yet exist in 22`.git/refs/tags/` directory. 23 24If one of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` is passed, the command 25creates a 'tag' object, and requires the tag message. Unless 26`-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given, an editor is started for the user to type 27in the tag message. 28 29Otherwise just the SHA1 object name of the commit object is 30written (i.e. a lightweight tag). 31 32A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u 33<key-id>` is used. When `-u <key-id>` is not used, the 34committer identity for the current user is used to find the 35GnuPG key for signing. 36 37OPTIONS 38------- 39-a:: 40 Make an unsigned, annotated tag object 41 42-s:: 43 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address's key 44 45-u <key-id>:: 46 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key 47 48-f:: 49 Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing) 50 51-d:: 52 Delete existing tags with the given names. 53 54-v:: 55 Verify the gpg signature of the given tag names. 56 57-n <num>:: 58 <num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, 59 are printed when using -l. 60 The default is not to print any annotation lines. 61 If no number is given to `-n`, only the first line is printed. 62 63-l <pattern>:: 64 List tags with names that match the given pattern (or all if no pattern is given). 65 Typing "git tag" without arguments, also lists all tags. 66 67-m <msg>:: 68 Use the given tag message (instead of prompting). 69 If multiple `-m` options are given, there values are 70 concatenated as separate paragraphs. 71 72-F <file>:: 73 Take the tag message from the given file. Use '-' to 74 read the message from the standard input. 75 76CONFIGURATION 77------------- 78By default, git-tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your 79committer identity (of the form "Your Name <your@email.address>") to 80find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can specify 81it in the repository configuration as follows: 82 83------------------------------------- 84[user] 85 signingkey = <gpg-key-id> 86------------------------------------- 87 88 89DISCUSSION 90---------- 91 92On Re-tagging 93~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 94 95What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would 96want to re-tag? 97 98If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to 99replace the old one. And you're done. 100 101But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read 102your repository directly), then others will have already seen 103the old tag. In that case you can do one of two things: 104 105. The sane thing. 106Just admit you screwed up, and use a different name. Others have 107already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the same name, you 108may be in the situation that two people both have "version X", 109but they actually have 'different' "X"'s. So just call it "X.1" 110and be done with it. 111 112. The insane thing. 113You really want to call the new version "X" too, 'even though' 114others have already seen the old one. So just use "git tag -f" 115again, as if you hadn't already published the old one. 116 117However, Git does *not* (and it should not) change tags behind 118users back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a "git 119pull" on your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old 120one. 121 122If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change 123the tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big 124security issue, in that people MUST be able to trust their 125tag-names. If you really want to do the insane thing, you need 126to just fess up to it, and tell people that you messed up. You 127can do that by making a very public announcement saying: 128 129------------ 130Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I 131then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again. 132 133If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete 134the old one and fetch the new one by doing: 135 136 git tag -d X 137 git fetch origin tag X 138 139to get my updated tag. 140 141You can test which tag you have by doing 142 143 git rev-parse X 144 145which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version. 146 147Sorry for inconvenience. 148------------ 149 150Does this seem a bit complicated? It *should* be. There is no 151way that it would be correct to just "fix" it behind peoples 152backs. People need to know that their tags might have been 153changed. 154 155 156On Automatic following 157~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 158 159If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely 160using tracking branches (`refs/heads/origin` in traditional 161layout, or `refs/remotes/origin/master` in the separate-remote 162layout). You usually want the tags from the other end. 163 164On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a 165one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to 166get tags from there. This happens more often for people near 167the toplevel but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling 168from each other do not necessarily want to automatically get 169private anchor point tags from the other person. 170 171You would notice "please pull" messages on the mailing list says 172repo URL and branch name alone. This is designed to be easily 173cut&pasted to "git fetch" command line: 174 175------------ 176Linus, please pull from 177 178 git://git..../proj.git master 179 180to get the following updates... 181------------ 182 183becomes: 184 185------------ 186$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master 187------------ 188 189In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow other's 190tags. 191 192One important aspect of git is it is distributed, and being 193distributed largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or 194"downstream" in the system. On the face of it, the above 195example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned 196by upper echelon of people and tags only flow downwards, but 197that is not the case. It only shows that the usage pattern 198determines who are interested in whose tags. 199 200A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing 201the boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are 202primarily interested in networking part of the kernel") who may 203have their own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release 204candidate from the networking group to be proposed for general 205consumption with 2.6.21 release") to another circle of people 206(e.g. "people who integrate various subsystem improvements"). 207The latter are usually not interested in the detailed tags used 208internally in the former group (that is what "internal" means). 209That is why it is desirable not to follow tags automatically in 210this case. 211 212It may well be that among networking people, they may want to 213exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow 214they are most likely tracking with each other's progress by 215having tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically 216follow such tags is a good thing. 217 218 219On Backdating Tags 220~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 221 222If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like 223to add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able 224to specify the date to embed inside of the tag object. The data in 225the tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the 226gitweb interface. 227 228To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment 229variable GIT_AUTHOR_DATE to one or more of the date and time. The 230date and time can be specified in a number of ways; the most common 231is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM". 232 233An example follows. 234 235------------ 236$ GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1 237------------ 238 239 240Author 241------ 242Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, 243Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and Chris Wright <chrisw@osdl.org>. 244 245Documentation 246-------------- 247Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 248 249GIT 250--- 251Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite